'No easy solutions' in Monroe property tax reassessment

Monroe County commissioners say it's time to explore a comprehensive property tax assessment. It's been 25 years since the last reassessment, but it's expensive, according to Monroe County Chief Assessor Tom Hill.

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By DAVID PIERCE

poconorecord.com

By DAVID PIERCE

Posted Jan. 7, 2013 at 12:01 AM

By DAVID PIERCE

Posted Jan. 7, 2013 at 12:01 AM

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Monroe County commissioners say it's time to explore a comprehensive property tax assessment.

It's been 25 years since the last reassessment, but it's expensive, according to Monroe County Chief Assessor Tom Hill.

The process involves inspecting all 102,000 county parcels and assigning new assessments. Each property inspection could cost $60, Hill said, bringing the total to more than $6 million.

"We've got to figure out what a solution would be," Moyer said, calling property reassessment a priority issue.

An assessment determines relative property values that are the basis for applying millage rates for individual school, municipal and county tax bills.

Since the last assessment, new home construction and other building improvements have been assigned values based on what those structures would be worth in the 1988 reassessment "base year."

Real estate and property tax professionals say the longer a county goes without an all-at-once property reassessment, the more likely that inequities will arise. In a reassessment, many property values could go down while others could go up.

Perhaps there is a way to do a reassessment without having to visit every parcel, Commissioners Chairman John Moyer said, thereby reducing the cost. He pointed to another county he said performed a reassessment for just $700,000.

Commissioner Suzanne McCool wants to await recommendations from the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania, which is reviewing assessment and overall tax fairness, before considering a reassessment.

"What they are looking at is a uniform system for the state that all counties could use," McCool said. "I want us to do it the right way. I don't want us to go off half-cocked."

The state commissioners association believes the issue of tax unfairness can't be ignored any longer and that the state Legislature will be compelled to enact reforms, she said.

There are plenty of legislative proposals to replace the school property tax with a combination of sales and income taxes, she said. But it won't do any good to give counties the option of enacting a school sales tax if surrounding counties fail to enact a similar tax.

"It needs to be the same everywhere," McCool said.

Mark Love, the county assessment office's consulting attorney, agrees that "sooner rather than later," a property reassessment needs to be done.

"Everyone understands Monroe County is overdue for a reassessment," Love said. "There's no question expense is a huge obstacle to reassessment."

Hill points to a study last year commissioned by the state House which makes several recommendations for standardizing the process statewide. This includes combining three major property evaluation methods into a single system, and publicly disclosing the cost tables and methods used to set values.

The study recommends a standardized method to evaluate specific common types of properties — rather than all properties within a county — for reassessment when inequities arise within that property type. This could include reassessing homes in a particular neighborhood where inequities are found, though it isn't clear that approach is constitutional.

The County Commissioners Association has gone on record in favor of using some proceeds from the transfer tax on real estate sales to help pay for reassessments. Other ideas for covering the cost include asking school districts and local governments to chip in.

Commissioner Charlie Garris agrees Monroe County should consider an assessment, but he isn't sure if the time is right. Cost and the reliability of reassessment results should be considered first.

"There are a lot of factors that go into it," Garris said. "There are no easy solutions."

"I think the timing's important, too," Hill said, noting a record number of home foreclosures could skew true values. "We need to see a less stressful economy so we're using more arm's-length transactions and less foreclosures."